354 GIRAFFE GROUP 



With the exception of the very distinct Somali species, all the 

 known varieties of giraffe may be regarded as local races of a 

 single specific type, technically known as Giraffa camelopardalis. In 

 none of the phases of this species are the dark areas of the deep 

 liver- red tint characteristic of the Somali animal, while the light 

 markings never form such a distinct and coarse network, and are 

 usually tawny instead of white. It is, however, noteworthy that the 

 northern or typical form of the ordinary giraffe is the one making the 

 nearest approach in colouring to the Somali species, being a chestnut- 

 coloured animal with an irregular network of light markings. It has, 

 moreover, the three horns characteristic of the Somali species. On the 

 other hand, as we travel down the eastern side of the continent, it is 

 noticeable that the pattern of the colouring shows a gradual tendency 

 to pass from the reticulate, or netted, to the spotted, or blotched, type ; 

 this being brought about by the increase in the width of the light 

 markings and a darkening of their colour, accompanied by a corre- 

 sponding diminution in the size and multiplication in the number of 

 the dark areas. The culmination of this gradual change is that the 

 Cape giraffe may be best described as a fawn-coloured animal marked 

 with irregular dark blotches, which are chestnut-coloured in the cows 

 and young males, but deep chocolate in the old bulls. Nor is this all, 

 for the males of the Cape giraffe have almost completely lost the 

 unpaired frontal horn so conspicuously developed in all or most of the 

 northern and eastern races of the species ; neither have they any distinct 

 traces of the small back-horns found in some of the eastern races. 



As these local gradations in the matter of horns and colouring are 

 of very considerable interest, it may be well, at the risk of some repetition, 

 to quote from a paper contributed by myself to the Zoological Society's 

 Proceedings for 1 904 : 



" Firstly, we notice as we proceed from south to north the gradual 

 passage of a two-horned animal into one (so far as the males are 

 concerned) with three horns. But the development is by no means 

 simply progressive, for we find in the eastern districts of the continent 

 a tendency to the formation of a five-horned, and even of a six-horned, 

 race. 



" Secondly, proceeding in the same direction, a transition is 

 observable from a blotched animal (that is to say, one with irregular 

 dark chocolate-coloured blotches on a tawny ground) with dark legs 

 spotted down to the hoofs, to one in which the markings take the 

 form of a white or buffish network on a chestnut or liver-coloured 

 ground, while the lower portion of the legs becomes unspotted white ; 



